zonk!

A year-end playlist of British hip-hop

I miss the days of mixtapes. Back in the 1980s and 90s, I was one of those guys who was constantly making tapes (and CDs) to suit different moods and settings. This was either a charming diversion or an unendurable burden (my wife’s take), depending upon your perspective.

In the digital music era, I have transferred my affection for mixtapes to Spotify, where I am an active playlist compiler. As a special year-end thank you to subscribers, I have put together “zonk,” a compilation of my favorite British rap tracks.

I spent more hours than I care to admit trawling through Spotify to put this playlist together. British hip hop is not a genre that I know very well. The differences between drill, trap and grime elude me. So this playlist contains a handful of no-brainer, usual-suspects selections (e.g. Stormzy, The Streets) as well as a bunch of folks that I’ve basically never heard of. (Although keen observers will note that I seem to gravitate toward artists from the High Focus stable.)

My guidelines for making a playlist are pretty simple. For me, the perfect playlist contains 20 songs. (I went over by a few.) I also try to avoid have multiple songs from the same artist. For “zonk,” I just selected tracks that spoke to me, without regard to the importance of the performer, the popularity of the song, or the sub-genre the track belongs to.

The lyrics to many of these songs are indecipherable, at least to me. I think MC Devvo’s gleefully anti-social “Donny Soldier” is a joke. At least that’s how I take it. Kae Tempest’s “Statue in the Square” seems to be an affirmation of trans identity, but I’m not 100% positive. Stormzy’s “Shut Up” is clearly a dis track, but I don’t know who or what sparked his ire.

But even when the words and meanings are inscrutable, you can still make out the basic “fuck you” attitude that powers much of the best hip-hop. I offer this playlist up along with my thanks for reading and my best wishes for the new year.